Media
Poets & Writers
"In our seventh annual look at the debut authors of some of the year’s most poignant, meditative, and experimental memoirs, essay collections, and memoirs in essays, David Martinez details the watershed events that led to the writing and eventual publication of his memoir about brotherly love and the wounds, both literal and metaphoric, that shape us; Wei Tchou compares the process of writing her innovative book on ferns, family lore, and selfhood to growing a propulsive tomato plant; Zara Chowdhary describes how finally reckoning with what was brewing inside her from a childhood spent surrounded by anti-Muslim violence allowed her to free herself; Lydia Paar explains how the privacy of the writing process and outside feedback led to an essay collection that untangles varied topics on the notion of transformation; and Neesha Powell-Ingabire reflects on the rebellious and healing act of writing a memoir in essays about the history of the Geechee Coast. This year’s The New Nonfiction feature includes five distinct debut journeys that reveal the thoughts, feelings, and actions behind each author’s writing and publication process, a process that started more or less the same for them all."
Jacobin
"I'm going to escah-pay.” So begins Lydia Paar’s debut essay collection, The Exit Is the Entrance: Essays on Escape. The book is both a work-travel memoir and a penetrating, often poetic deliberation on what it takes to remain intact in a world designed to shatter you. Packaged as a spiritual-philosophical bildungsroman in essay form, The Exit Is the Entrance is something far more valuable: a sensitive account of economic survival."
--Eileen G'Sell
Tucson Sentinel
"Paar's writing is sharp and takes no prisoners with its honesty. Her essays are balanced with emotion, commentary and storytelling, resulting in a heartfelt collection."
--Bianca Morales